Dictionary:
rape1 (rāp) 
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[Middle English, from rapen, to rape, from Old French raper, to abduct, from Latin rapere, to seize.]
raper rap'er n.
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
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World of the Body:
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Rape has always been deemed a terrible crime. What has changed over time is the perception of what constitutes rape. Since the 1960s, rape is increasingly considered as sexual intercourse without consent. Not very long ago physical violence was taken to be intrinsic to the notion of rape; this is no longer so. It was also assumed that rape occurred predominantly between strangers. Now the idea of rape within marriage is no longer thought a contradiction in terms.
Defined as the unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman by force and against her will, rape was a capital crime already in early Anglo-Saxon times. It was deemed a crime even where legal codes said nothing of it. Thus the Chevalier de Jaucourt (1704-80 cited the argument which Cicero (106-43 bc) had made around 46 bc:
[e]ven if there was no written law against rape at Rome in the reign of Lucius Tarquinius, we cannot say on that account that Sextus Tarquinius did not break that eternal Law by violating Lucretia, the daughter of Tricipitinus! For reason did exist, derived from the Nature of the universe, urging men to right conduct and diverting them from wrong-doing, and this reason did not first become Law when it was written down, but when it first came into existence; and it came into existence simultaneously with the divine mind.
— Sylvana Tomaselli
Bibliography
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US History Encyclopedia:
Rape |
Rape is a crime of sexual coercion, most commonly committed by men and against women. While we have limited information about the incidence of rape in early America, there is strong evidence to suggest that many more rapes occur today, when rates are adjusted for population, than occurred in the colonial period. Estimates are that in the early twenty-first century at least one in eight women in America has been a victim of forcible rape, a crime that can cause acute and long-term trauma of both physical and psychological dimensions.
Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, American rape law changed surprisingly little. Since the mid-1970s, however, the law has been modified considerably, largely due to the persuasive efforts of reformers who claimed that traditional rape law manifested biases and inadequacies.
Definition and Punishment
Throughout England and colonial America, rape was defined as the carnal knowledge of a woman obtained forcibly and against her will. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, rape was treated primarily as a crime committed by a male stranger against another man, an outsider's trespass against the property of the husband or father of the woman who was raped. Even in the twentieth century, after America had abandoned the formal notion of married women as property, its influence remained for many years in the form of the marital exemption from rape laws that irrefutably presumed a woman's consent even to forced intercourse with her husband. Because female slaves were the exclusive property of their owners, they too fell outside the reach of rape law.
In early English common law, rape was a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment. A statute enacted in England in 1285 made rape a capital felony. Likewise, in the American colonies, rape was exclusively a capital felony through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A rape conviction obtained in the past century, however, was more frequently punished by imprisonment.
Seventeenth Century
The law of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century England treated woman's accusations of rape with considerable skepticism. This attitude is captured in the oft-quoted language of the seventeenth-century English jurist Sir Matthew Hale in his History of the Pleas of the Crown: "It must be remembered, that [rape] is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, the never so innocent."
Although the skeptical approach to rape complaints characterized American law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it did not take hold instantly in the American colonies. Prior to 1700, when almost all sexual assault cases in colonial American courts involved attempted rape of white women by assailants they knew, conviction rates were quite high and magistrates articulated a philosophy of deterrence, often imposing severe corporal punishments on men convicted of attempted rape. In this Puritan regime, women who came to court alleging sexual violence that they had resisted were generally believed to be telling the truth. In the mid-1600s, Governor Theophilus Eaton of New Haven Colony explained that "a young girle [would not] bee so impudent as to charge such a carriage upon a young man when it was not so," especially when she would be subjected to intensive judicial questioning (Dayton, p. 239).
Although her account of sexual violation was generally deemed truthful, a woman who failed to report a sexual assault promptly might also receive corporal punishment, at a level less than her assailant, for concealing the offense for an unreasonable period. A woman pregnant out of wedlock who claimed to have been raped would not benefit from the presumption of truthfulness, as it was thought in that era that a woman could not conceive a child during a rape. These women, like those who were found to have encouraged or submitted to a man's sexual advances, were punished for fornication.
Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries
After 1700, colonial judges began consulting English legal sources more frequently and importing into American legal procedures the suspicion toward rape complaints that prevailed in England. In the 1700s, unlike the previous century, the noncapital crime of attempted rape by acquaintances was rarely prosecuted, and both rape indictments and conviction rates were low, especially if the complainant was an unmarried woman who had charged an acquaintance. As Zephaniah Swift, author of an eighteenth century treatise on Connecticut's laws warned, "the vindictive spirit of lewd women" has frequently caused charges of rape to be made from "motives of malice and revenge" (Dayton, p. 265).
When defendants were non-whites, the reluctance to sentence them to death for the crime of rape was [somewhat]diminished. In the eighteenth century, most of the men indicted for rape and virtually all who were convicted and executed were blacks, Indians, foreigners, or transients. Rape evolved into a crime committed primarily by strangers against white women. After 1700, father-daughter incest, no longer a capital felony, was the only crime of sexual violence for which local white men might expect harsh corporal punishment.
Racialized enforcement of rape law continued through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Forbidden sexual access to white women and stereotyped as sexual predators, African American men alleged to have raped white women were often vigorously prosecuted, even in cases where there was reason to doubt the allegation's veracity. This is the scenario that underlies the infamous Scottsboro Case in which nine young African American men were falsely accused of gang rape in 1931 in a small town in Alabama, tried without some of the most minimal protections of fair process, convicted, and in eight of the cases, sentenced to death. Ultimately the Supreme Court reversed all the convictions, but not before the Scottsboro defendants had served many years of imprisonment. Statistics show that African Americans constituted approximately 90 percent of the men executed for rape in the United States in the twentieth century. The Supreme Court highlighted this racialized pattern of punishment when it declared the death penalty for rape unconstitutional in the case of Coker v. Georgia (1977).
By contrast, when complainants were African American women, rape laws were notoriously underenforced. The institutionalized rape of black females by white slave owners as part of the system of slavery is well documented. Since a slave woman was considered "unrapeable" by law, she could not control her sexual accessibility and had no lawful options to resist being raped. Hence in 1855, when a young slave named Celia repeatedly resisted forcible sexual advances by Robert Newsom, her sixty-five-year-old Missouri slave master, finally striking him with a large stick that caused his death, she was tried for capital murder, convicted, and executed by hanging.
Reform Efforts
Model Penal Code. While late-nineteenth-century women's groups succeeded in their lobbying to raise the age limit for statutory rape, the first twentieth-century effort to modernize rape law came with the revision of the Model Penal Code (MPC) in the 1950s. The MPC is an influential model statute drafted by a group of learned legal experts. In the MPC revision, the rape victim no longer had to resist "to the utmost," as many states had required, to prove her nonconsent. Following this lead, states began to abolish resistance requirements. The MPC also established three grades of sexual assaults. Felony rape in the first degree was violent stranger rape. Violent acquaintance rape was a second-degree felony, and other kinds of sexual coercion constituted the third-degree felony of "gross sexual imposition." Adapting this model, many states have graded rape offenses by degree of severity in their statutory schemes.
Feminist Critiques. Subsequent reforms of traditional rape law came largely as a response to the critiques that began to emerge from the woman's movement in the 1970s. Feminist reformers [first] raised awareness of the extent of rape and the degree of harm it inflicts, then analyzed how, despite harsh penalties for rape, the law had failed to hold accountable most perpetrators. These reformers suggested that misunderstandings about the crime of rape were operating within traditional rape law and impeding its effectiveness.
Feminist writings portrayed the evidentiary and procedural rules unique to rape law as reflections of patriarchal skepticism about rape victims' claims. This led to such virulent attacks on victims' character and behavior in rape cases that the rate at which victims reported rape was reduced, as were the rates at which police arrested, prosecutors charged, and judges and juries convicted and sentenced. Feminists observed that a direct consequence of this preoccupation with false accusations was dramatic underprotection of victims of sexual assault.
In her book, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No (1987), the law professor Susan Estrich asserts that only violent stranger rapes, which constitute a minority of rapes committed, are treated as serious crimes in the legal system. Estrich and others argue that disparate treatment of some rapes such as stranger rapes, and other rapes, such as acquaintance rapes, belies the fact that all of these actions violate the victim's bodily integrity and sexual autonomy.
Rape Law in the Early Twenty-First Century
Some rape law reforms have achieved broad acceptance. For example, state statutes tend to denominate rape by more descriptive terms such as "criminal sexual conduct" or "sexual assault," to define it in gender-neutral terms, and to encompass a broader array of conduct including oral and anal penetration. The age limit for statutory rape is typically the mid-teens, and the marital exemption from rape laws survives in a limited form only in a small number of states. Requirements that the victim's testimony be corroborated and that jurors be cautioned to give this testimony special scrutiny have largely disappeared. Rape shield laws that, with some exceptions, restrict admission of the victim's prior sexual conduct, have been widely adopted. Rarely is physical resistance formally required any longer to show nonconsent.
Other proposed reforms have received less widespread acceptance. For example, only a few states prohibit sexual coercion by certain types of fraud or by extortionate threats. A few states will not exonerate rape defendants who claim to have reasonably mistaken nonconsent for consent, while many others will. Whether and under what circumstances to permit mistakes about consent to provide a valid defense is an area of continuing controversy in rape law.
The impact of these reforms is unclear, as studies have detected only limited measurable effects from various reforms on victim behavior and case outcomes. This may reflect the fact that popular attitudes can be harder to change than written laws. Perhaps for similar reasons, the problem of rape in American penal institutions persists at high levels, with estimates that 350,000 sexual assaults are committed each year on male prisoners, typically by other prisoners. High levels of rape of female prisoners by male prison staff have also been reported.
Despite the fact that rape is largely an intraracial crime, studies suggest that cases involving black male suspects and white female victims still attract greatest attention from the courts and the press and are accorded the harshest punishment. This discriminatory treatment poses grave harm to African American men and contributes as well to cultural denial of the frequency and seriousness of other forms of rape. Studies also suggest that African American women remain least able of all rape complainants to obtain redress through legal process. Unfortunately, efforts to combat race bias in rape law enforcement are difficult to achieve through statutory reform. As with many of the other aspects of the problem of rape, they require deeper cultural change.
Two of the most famous rape trials of the late twentieth century, those of William Kennedy Smith in 1991 and heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in 1992, were based on allegations of date rape. In each trial, the victim testified that she was raped and the defendant testified that sex was consensual. In the Smith trial, the jury resolved credibility questions in favor of the defendant, finding Smith not guilty. In the Tyson trial, the jury resolved credibility questions in favor of the victim. As a result, Tyson was convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. As American culture continues to struggle with issues of date rape and acquaintance rape, reform affecting cases such as these will likely continue.
Bibliography
Dayton, Cornelia Hughes. Women before the Bar: Gender, Law, and Society in Connecticut, 1639–1789. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Estrich, Susan. Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.
LaFree, Gary D. Rape and Criminal Justice: The Social Construction of Sexual Assault. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1989.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. Sex Equality: Rape Law. New York: Foundation Press, 2001.
Schulhofer, Stephen J. Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Spohn, Cassia, and Julie Horney. Rape Law Reform: A Grassroots Revolution and Its Impact. New York: Plenum, 1992.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
rape |
Issues surrounding rape and the law have been fiercely debated for years in the United States, and recent efforts-particularly by feminist groups-have had marked success in expanding victims' rights. One important reform, which has been in effect in most states in recent years, has been the removal of statutes requiring that rape victims physically resist the attack. Prior to this reform, victims of rape were required to display clear signs of injury in order to prove that they did not consent to sexual relations. Another reform has made marital rape a crime in many circumstances, with South Dakota becoming the first state to institute such law reforms in 1975. In the 1980s, "date rape," or acquaintance rape, became an important issue, particularly on college campuses. Victims of date rape contend that they were raped by an individual with whom they were acquainted. In many such cases, the establishment of guilt becomes difficult, particularly in cases where the victim displays no physical evidence of violence and there is only the testimony of the victim. In international law, rape was designated (2000) a war crime by the Yugoslav tribunal established by the United Nations at The Hague. Rape can cause profound psychological trauma in its victims.
Bibliography
See D. E. Russell, The Politics of Rape (1984); S. Tomaselli and R. Porter, ed., Rape (1986); Z. Adler, Rape on Trial (1987); S. Estrich, Real Rape (1987).
Law Encyclopedia:
Rape |
A criminal offense defined in most states as forcible sexual relations with a person against that person's will.
Rape is the commission of unlawful sexual intercourse or unlawful sexual intrusion. Rape laws in the United States have been revised over the years, and they vary from state to state.
Historically, rape was defined as unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman against her will. The essential elements of the crime were sexual penetration, force, and lack of consent. Women who were raped were expected to have physically resisted to the utmost of their powers or the man would not be convicted of rape. Additionally, a husband could have sex with his wife against her will without being charged with rape. Beginning in the 1970s, state legislatures and courts expanded and redefined the crime of rape to reflect modern notions of equality and legal propriety.
All states now define rape without reference to the sex of the victim and the perpetrator. However, the overwhelming majority of rape victims are women. A woman may be convicted of raping a man, a man may be convicted of raping a man, and a woman may be convicted of raping another woman. Furthermore, a spouse may be convicted of rape if he forces the other spouse to have nonconsensual sex. Many states do not punish the rape of a spouse as severely as the rape of a non-spouse.
Many states also have redefined lack of consent. Before the 1970s many courts viewed the element of force from the standpoint of the victim. A man would not be convicted of rape of a competent woman unless she had demonstrated some physical resistance. In the absence of physical resistance, courts usually held that the sex was consensual. Today, in many states, the prosecution can prove lack of consent by presenting evidence that the victim objected verbally to the sexual penetration or sexual intrusion.
Lack of consent is a necessary element in every rape. This does not mean that a person may make sexual contact with a minor or incapacitated person who actually consented. Lack of consent results from either forcible compulsion by the perpetrator or an incapacity to consent on the part of the victim. Persons who are physically or mentally helpless or who are under a certain age in relation to the perpetrator are deemed legally incapable of consenting to sex.
Most states choose to label the crime of rape as sexual assault. Sexual assault is divided into degrees, such as first-, second-, third-, and fourth-degree sexual assault. West Virginia provides a good illustration of how rape laws are written. In West Virginia a person is guilty of sexual assault in the first degree when that person engages in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person and either inflicts serious bodily injury upon anyone or employs a deadly weapon in the commission of the act (W. Va. Code § 61-8B-3 [1996]). Additionally, a person age fourteen years or older who engages in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person who is eleven years old or less is guilty of first-degree sexual assault. A person convicted of the crime of first-degree sexual assault in West Virginia faces imprisonment for at least fifteen years and not more than thirty-five years and may be fined from $1,000 to $10,000.
In West Virginia a person commits sexual assault in the second degree by engaging in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person without that person's consent and the lack of consent results from forcible compulsion. Forcible compulsion is (1) physical force that overcomes such earnest resistance as might reasonably be expected under the circumstances; (2) threat or intimidation, either express or implied, placing the victim or another person in fear of death, bodily injury, or kidnapping; or (3) fear by a person under sixteen years of age caused by intimidation by another person who is at least four years older than the victim.
Another way to commit second-degree sexual assault in West Virginia is to engage in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with someone who is physically helpless. The punishment for second-degree sexual assault is imprisonment for at least ten years but not more than twenty-five years and may include a fine of from $1,000 to $10,000.
Third-degree sexual assault is committed when a person engages in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person who is mentally defective or mentally incapacitated, or when a person age sixteen years or older has sex with a person who is less than sixteen years old and is at least four years younger than the defendant. Third-degree sexual assault is punishable in West Virginia by at least one, but no more than five, years in prison and may include a fine of not more than $10,000.
The provisions that refer to the age of the victim and the perpetrator are called statutory rape provisions. Statutory rape sections punish the perpetrator without regard to the consent of the victim. Such laws are in place in all states to enforce the generally accepted notions that children are incapable of consenting to sex because of their youth and innocence, and that sexual intercourse or intrusion of a child by an older person is socially unacceptable and harmful to the child. The term statutory rape also refers to the sections that punish sex with physically and mentally incapacitated persons, who are similarly unable to consent to sex.
Rape or sexual assault statutes carefully define the type of contact that constitutes rape. In Hawaii, for example, the term sexual penetration is defined as "vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus, analingus, deviate sexual intercourse, or any intrusion of any part of a person's body or of any object into the genital or anal opening of another person's body … however slight." Sexual contact is "any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person … or of the sexual or other intimate parts of the actor by the person, whether directly or through the clothing or other material intended to cover the sexual or other intimate parts" (Haw. Rev. Stat. § 707-700 [1996]).
Most states punish lesser sexual intrusions with statutes on sexual abuse. Like sexual assault statutes, sexual abuse statutes are divided into degrees based on the nature of the contact. Sexual abuse consists of nonconsensual sexual contact with another person. Lack of consent is present if the victim is a minor or physically helpless, or if the victim was forcibly compelled to consent to the contact. A person convicted of sexual abuse may be fined and sentenced to a term in jail or prison. Because the crime does not involve penetration, the punishment for sexual abuse is less than that authorized for persons convicted of sexual assault.
A few states have eliminated the requirement that a competent adult rape victim physically resist the attacker. Physical resistance in some rape situations presents a greater danger to the victim. The states that have eliminated the physical requirement have found it to be unfair to require physical resistance on the part of the victim if such resistance risks greater injury. In Michigan, for example, force or coercion "includes but is not limited to" several situations, including where the actor coerces the victim through threats of force or violence and the victim believes that the actor can carry out the threats, and where the actor physically overcomes the victim through the actual application of physical force (Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 750.520a [West 1996]). Nowhere in Michigan's rape statutes is consent based on an analysis of the victim's physical resistance.
The states that have not eliminated physical resistance as a test for lack of consent have declined to do so for fear of convicting an adult who has sex with another adult without the knowledge that he or she is not consenting. Nevertheless, even in a state that has not eliminated the physical resistance requirement for competent adults, if the victim says "No" or otherwise verbally indicates lack of consent, the perpetrator still may be convicted of rape. This is because prosecutors have argued, and appeals courts have agreed, that some amount of force, no matter how slight, should be sufficient to fulfill the forcible compulsion element. The sexual penetration of a competent adult, for example, may be enough force to meet a forcible compulsion requirement, if the victim indicated a lack of consent.
Most states have so-called rape shield laws. These laws restrict or prohibit the use of evidence respecting the sexual history of rape victims and the victims of other sexual offenses. Before the enactment of rape shield laws in the 1970s and 1980s, rape trials often focused on the chastity of the victim to determine whether the victim was actually raped. Rape shield laws keep the focus of a rape prosecution on the actions of the defendant rather than the prior actions of the alleged victim.
See: Child Abuse; Domestic Violence; Feminist Jurisprudence; Husband and Wife; Pornography; Statutory Rape.
Wikipedia:
Rape |
| Sexual assault | |
|---|---|
| Classification and external resources | |
| ICD-9 | E960.1 |
| MedlinePlus | 001955 |
| eMedicine | article/806120 |
| MeSH | D011902 |
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| Criminal law |
|---|
| Part of the common law series |
| Element (criminal law) |
| Actus reus · Mens rea Causation · Concurrence |
| Scope of criminal liability |
| Complicity · Corporate · Vicarious |
| Inchoate offenses |
| Attempt · Conspiracy · Solicitation |
| Offence against the person |
| Assault · Battery False imprisonment · Kidnapping Mayhem · Sexual assault |
| Crimes against property |
| Arson · Blackmail · Burglary Embezzlement · Extortion False pretenses · Larceny Receiving stolen property Robbery · Theft |
| Crimes against justice |
| Compounding · Misprision Obstruction · Perjury Malfeasance in office Perverting the course of justice |
| Defenses to liability |
| Defense of self Defence of property Consent · Diminished responsibility Duress · Entrapment Ignorantia juris non excusat Infancy · Insanity Intoxication defense Justification · Mistake (of law) Necessity · Provocation |
| Other common law areas |
| Contracts · Evidence · Property Torts · Wills, trusts and estates |
| Portals |
| Criminal justice · Law |
In criminal law, rape is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with another person without that person's consent. Outside of law, the term is often used interchangeably with sexual assault,[1][2][3] a closely related (but in most jurisdictions technically distinct) form of assault typically including rape and other forms of non-consensual sexual activity.[4][5]
The rate of reporting, prosecution and convictions for rape varies considerably in different jurisdictions. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) estimated that 91% of U.S. rape victims are female and 9% are male, with 99% of the offenders being male.[6] In one survey of women, only two percent of respondents who stated they were sexually assaulted said that the assault was perpetrated by a stranger.[7] Several studies argue that male-male and female-female prison rape are quite common and may be the least reported form of rape.[8][9][10]
When part of a widespread and systematic practice, rape and sexual slavery are recognized as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also recognized as an element of the crime of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted ethnic group.
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Though definitions vary, rape is defined in most jurisdictions as sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, by one person ("the accused" or "the perpetrator") with or against another person ("the victim") without the consent of the victim.
The term sexual assault is closely related to rape. Some jurisdictions define "rape" to cover only acts involving penile penetration of the vagina, treating all other types of non-consensual sexual activity as sexual assault. The terminology varies, with some places using other terms. For example, Michigan, United States uses the term "criminal sexual conduct".[11] In some jurisdictions, rape is defined in terms of sexual penetration of the victim with or without penetration of objects.[12] Some jurisdictions also consider rape to include the use of sexual organs of one or both of the parties, such as oral copulation and masturbation.
Australian psychologist Sarah Crome argues that male rape victims often get little services and support and that male victims report feeling threatened by male staff in court rooms and the legal system which is based around patriarchal ideology.[13] In Brazil, for example, the legal code does not legislate against women raping men. Rape is defined as non-consensual vaginal sex.[14] Therefore, unlike most of Europe and the Americas, male rape, anal rape, and oral rape are not considered to be rape. Instead, such an act is called a "violent attempt against someone's modesty" ("Atentado violento ao pudor").
In any allegation of rape, the absence of consent to sexual intercourse on the part of the victim is critical. Consent need not be expressed, and may be implied from the context and from the relationship of the parties, but the absence of objection does not of itself constitute consent.
Duress, in which the victim may be subject to or threatened by overwhelming force or violence, and which may result in absence of objection to intercourse, leads to the presumption of lack of consent. Duress may be actual or threatened force or violence against the victim or somebody else close to the victim. Even blackmail may constitute duress. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark 1998 judgment used a definition of rape which did not use the word 'consent': "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive."[15]
Valid consent is also lacking if the victim lacks an actual capacity to give consent, as in the case of a victim who is a child, or who has a mental impairment or developmental disability. Consent can always be withdrawn at any time, so that any further sexual activity after the withdrawal of consent constitutes rape.
The law would invalidate consent in the case of sexual intercourse with a person below the age at which they can legally consent to such relations. (See age of consent.) Such cases are sometimes called statutory rape or "unlawful sexual intercourse", regardless of whether it was consensual or not.
In times gone by and in many countries still today marriage is said to constitute at least an implied consent to sexual intercourse. However, marriage in many countries today is no longer a defense to rape or assault. In some jurisdictions, a person cannot be found guilty of the rape of a spouse, either on the basis of "implied consent" or (in the case of former British colonies) because of a statutory requirement that the intercourse must have been "unlawful" (which is legal nomenclature for outside of wedlock).[16] However, in many of those jurisdictions, it is still possible to bring prosecutions for what is effectively rape by characterizing it as an assault.[17]
There are several types of rape, generally categorized by reference to the situation in which it occurs, the sex or characteristics of the victim, and/or the sex or characteristics of the perpetrator. Different types of rape include but are not limited to: date rape, gang rape, marital rape or spousal rape, incestual rape, child sexual abuse, prison rape, acquaintance rape, war rape and statutory rape.[18] The victim does not have to be penetrated to be raped; the perpetrator can use objects to stimulate the genitals. The perpetrator can use their hand to stimulate the genitals. The perpetrator can use drugs (roofies and others) or hypnosis to incapacitate the victim. Rape is not always done for sexual satisfaction of the perpetrator. Blackmail, punishment, curiosity, money, and power are all motives for rape, as well as sex.
There is no single theory that conclusively explains the motivation for rape; the motives of rapists can be multi-factorial and are subject to debate. Several factors have been proposed: anger, a desire for power, sadism, sexual gratification,[19] and evolutionary pressures.[19]
It is argued that rape, as a reproductive strategy, is encountered in many instances in the animal kingdom (i.e.: ducks, geese, and certain dolphin species).[20][21] It is difficult to determine what constitutes rape among animals, as the lack of informed consent defines rape among humans. See also Non-human animal sexuality.
Sociobiologists Thornhill and Palmer argue that the ability to understand rape, and thereby prevent it, is severely compromised because its basis in human evolution has been ignored.[22] Studies by these sociobiologists indicate that it is an evolutionary strategy for certain males who lack the ability to persuade the female by non-violent means to pass on their genes.[23]
American social critic Camille Paglia has argued that a victim-blaming intuition may have a non-psychological component in some cases. She states that sociobiological models suggest that it may be genetically-ingrained for certain men and women to allow themselves to be more vulnerable to rape, and that this may be a biological feature of members of the species.[19]
In 1998, Judge Navanethem Pillay of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said:
Rape, in the course of war, dates back to antiquity, ancient enough to have been mentioned in the Bible.[25] The Israelite, Persian, Greek and Roman armies reportedly engaged in war rape.[26] The Mongols, who established the Mongol Empire across much of Eurasia, caused much destruction during their invasions.[27] Documents written during or after Genghis Khan's reign say that after a conquest, the Mongol soldiers looted, pillaged and raped.[28] Rogerius, a monk who survived the Mongol invasion of Hungary, pointed out not only the genocidal element of the occupation, but also that the Mongols especially "found pleasure" in humiliating women.[29]
The systematic rape of as many as 80,000 women by the Japanese soldiers during the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre is an example of such atrocities.[30] During World War II an estimated 200,000 Korean and Chinese women were forced into prostitution in Japanese military brothels, as so-called "comfort women".[31] French Moroccan troops known as Goumiers committed rapes and other war crimes after the Battle of Monte Cassino. (See Marocchinate.)[32] The Red Army carried out a massive campaign of gang rape as they went through Germany.[33]
It has been alleged that an estimated 200,000 women were raped during the Bangladesh Liberation War by the Pakistani army[34] (though this has been disputed by many including the Indian academic Sarmila Bose [12]), and that at least 20,000 Bosnian Muslim women were raped by Serb forces during the Bosnian War.[35] Wartime propaganda often alleges, and exaggerates, mistreatment of the civilian population by enemy forces and allegations of rape figure prominently in this. As a result, it is often very difficult, both practically and politically, to assemble an accurate view of what really happened.
Commenting on rape of women and children in recent African conflict zones UNICEF said that rape was no longer just perpetrated by combatants but also by civilians. According to UNICEF rape is common in countries affected by wars and natural disasters, drawing a link between the occurrence of sexual violence with the significant uprooting of a society and the crumbling of social norms. UNICEF states that in Kenya reported cases of sexual violence doubled within days of post-election conflicts. According to UNICEF rape was prevalent in conflict zones in Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[36] It is estimated that more than 200,000 females living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today have been raped in recent conflicts.[37][38][39] Some estimate that around 60% of combatants in Congo are HIV-infected.[40]
In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found that systematic rape was used in the Rwandan genocide. The Tribunal held that "sexual assault [in Rwanda] formed an integral part of the process of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic and had been perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting the specific intent required for those acts to constitute genocide."[41] An estimated 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.[42]
The Rome Statute, which defines the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, recognizes rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, "or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity" as crime against humanity if the action is part of a widespread or systematic practice.[43][44]
Rape was first recognized as crime against humanity when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued arrest warrants based on the Geneva Conventions and Violations of the Laws or Customs of War. Specifically, it was recognised that Muslim women in Foca (southeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina) were subjected to systematic and widespread gang rape, torture and enslavement by Bosnian Serb soldiers, policemen and members of paramilitary groups after the takeover of the city in April 1992.[45]
The indictment was of major legal significance and was the first time that sexual assaults were investigated for the purpose of prosecution under the rubric of torture and enslavement as a crime against humanity.[45] The indictment was confirmed by a 2001 verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that rape and sexual enslavement are crimes against humanity. Amnesty International stated that the ruling challenged the widespread acceptance of the torture of women as an intrinsic part of war.[46]
Victims of rape can be severely traumatized by the assault and may have difficulty functioning as well as they had been used to prior to the assault, with disruption of concentration, sleeping patterns and eating habits, for example. They may feel jumpy or be on edge. After being raped, it is common for the victim to experience acute stress disorder, including symptoms similar to those of posttraumatic stress disorder, such as intense, sometimes unpredictable, emotions, and they may find it hard to deal with their memories of the event.[47][48] In the months immediately following the assault, these problems may be severe and very upsetting and may prevent the victim from revealing their ordeal to friends or family, or seeking police or medical assistance. Additional symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder include:[48]
For one-third to one-half of the victims, these symptoms continue beyond the first few months and meet the conditions for the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder.[47][49][50] (See also Significant Emotional Event.) In general, rape and sexual assault are among the most common causes of PTSD in women.[49]
"Victim blaming" is holding the victim of a crime to be in whole or in part responsible for the crime. In the context of rape, this concept refers to the Just World Theory and popular attitudes that certain victim behaviours (such as flirting, or wearing sexually-provocative clothing) may encourage rape.[51] In extreme cases, victims are said to have "asked for it", simply by not behaving demurely. In most Western countries, the defense of provocation is not accepted as a mitigation for rape.[52] A global survey of attitudes toward sexual violence by the Global Forum for Health Research shows that victim-blaming concepts are at least partially accepted in many countries. In some countries, victim-blaming is more common, and women who have been raped are sometimes deemed to have behaved improperly. Often, these are countries where there is a significant social divide between the freedoms and status afforded to men and women.[53] Amy M. Buddie and Arthur G. Miller, in a review of studies of rape myths, state:
Rape victims are blamed more when they resist the attack later in the rape encounter rather than earlier (Kopper, 1996), which seems to suggest the stereotype that these women are engaging in token resistance (Malamuth & Brown, 1994; Muehlenhard & Rogers, 1998) or leading the man on because they have gone along with the sexual experience thus far. Finally, rape victims are blamed more when they are raped by an acquaintance or a date rather than by a stranger (e.g., Bell, Kuriloff, & Lottes, 1994; Bridges, 1991; Bridges & McGr ail, 1989; Check & Malamuth, 1983; Kanekar, Shaherwalla, Franco, Kunju, & Pinto, 1991; L'Armand & Pepitone, 1982; Tetreault & Barnett, 1987), which seems to evoke the stereotype that victims really want to have sex because they know their attacker and perhaps even went out on a date with him. The underlying message of this research seems to be that when certain stereotypical elements of rape are in place, rape victims are prone to being blamed.
However they also note that "individuals may endorse rape myths and at the same time recognize the negative effects of rape."[54]
As sexual violence affects all parts of society, the response to sexual violence is comprehensive. The responses can be categorized as: individual approaches, health care responses, community-based efforts and actions to prevent other forms of sexual violence.
Rape is a crime in most places and usually reported to the police. However, the trauma of rape often leads victims to first contact a hotline, such as the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, which then counsels them and will, if requested, direct them to a local rape crisis center. Many police departments and hospital emergency rooms will also arrange a counselor from a rape crisis center.
The legal requirements for reporting rape vary by jurisdiction - each U.S. state may have different requirements[55] while other countries may have less stringent limits.[56]
Since the vast majority of rapes are committed by persons known to the victim, the initiation and process of a rape investigation depends much on the victim's willingness and ability to report and describe a rape.
Biological evidence such as semen, blood, vaginal secretions, saliva, vaginal epithelial cells (typically collected by a rape kit) may be identified and genetically typed by a crime lab. The information derived from the analysis can often help determine whether sexual contact occurred, provide information regarding the circumstances of the incident, and be compared to reference samples collected from patients and suspects.[57]
"Recovery from sexual assault is a complicated and controversial concept."[58]
Support groups, usually accessed by "umbrella" organizations (see List of anti-sexual assault organizations in the United States) are prevalent, including some on-line.
A United Nations report compiled from government sources showed that more than 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually. The reported data covered 65 countries.[59]
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) estimated that 91% of rape victims are female and 9% are male, with 99% of the offenders being male.[6] Some types of rape are excluded from official reports altogether, (the FBI's definition for example excludes all rapes except forcible rapes of females), because a significant number of rapes go unreported even when they are included as reportable rapes, and also because a significant number of rapes reported to the police do not advance to prosecution.[60] According to United States Department of Justice document Criminal Victimization in the United States, there were overall 191,670 victims of rape or sexual assault reported in 2005.[61] Only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation. 1992).[62] 1 of 6 U.S. women has experienced an attempted or completed rape.[63] More than a quarter of college age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14.[64]
The U.S. Department of Justice compiles statistics on crime by race, but only between and among people categorized as black or white. It should be noted that the "white" category in the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) includes non-black Hispanics.[65] There were 194,270 white and 17,920 black victims of rape or sexual assault reported in 2006. Out of the 194,270 cases involving white victims, 50.6% had white offenders and 16.7% had black offenders, while the 36,620 black victims had a figure of 43% black offenders, the remaining being of other or unreported race, with a negligible number of white offenders.[66] Gary LaFree's rape data for the 45-year period revealed that blacks were arrested for rape an average of 6.52 times more often than whites.[65]
Drug use, especially alcohol, is frequently involved in rape. A study (only of rape victims that were female and reachable by phone) reported detailed findings related to tactics. In 47% of such rapes, both the victim and the perpetrator had been drinking. In 17%, only the perpetrator had been. 7% of the time, only the victim had been drinking. Rapes where neither the victim nor the perpetrator had been drinking were 29% of all rapes.[7] Contrary to widespread belief, rape outdoors is rare. Over two thirds of all rapes occur in someone's home. 31% occur in the perpetrators' homes, 27% in the victims' homes and 10% in homes shared by the victim and perpetrator. 7% occur at parties, 7% in vehicles, 4% outdoors and 2% in bars.[7] From 2000-2005, 59% of rapes were not reported to law enforcement.[67][68] One factor relating to this is misconception that most rapes are committed by strangers.[69] In reality, studies indicate the following, widely varying, numbers:
| Source: | Current or Former Intimate Partner | Another Relative | Friend or Acquaintance | Stranger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Bureau of Justice Statistics | 26% | 7% | 38% | 26% |
| Australian Government Statistics[70] | 56% | 10% | 27% | 8% |
| UK Home Office (for comparison)[71] | 45.4% | 13.9% | 29.6% | 11% |
According to a news report on BBC One presented in 12 November 2007, there were 85,000 women raped in the UK in the previous year, equating to about 230 cases every day. According to that report one of every 200 women in the UK was raped in 2006. The report also showed that only 800 persons were convicted in rape crimes that same year.[72][73]
In eastern Congo, the prevalence and intensity of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world.[74] It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 surviving rape victims living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today.[37][38] War rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo has frequently been described as a "weapon of war" by commentators. Louise Nzigire, a local social worker, states that “this violence was designed to exterminate the population.” Nzigire observes that rape has been a "cheap, simple weapon for all parties in the war, more easily obtainable than bullets or bombs."
It is estimated that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read.[75] One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year.[76] A survey conducted among 1,500 schoolchildren in the Soweto township, a quarter of all the boys interviewed said that 'jackrolling', a term for gang rape, was fun.[76] More than 25% of South African men questioned in a survey admitted to raping someone; of those, nearly half said they had raped more than one person, according to a new study conducted by the Medical Research Council (MRC).[77][78] It is estimated that 500,000 rapes are committed annually in South Africa.[79]
South Africa has some of the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world with more than 67,000 cases of rape and sexual assaults against children reported in 2000.[80] Welfare groups believe that the number of unreported incidents could be up to 10 times that number. The largest increase in attacks was against children under seven. A number of high-profile baby rapes since 2001 (including the fact that they required extensive reconstructive surgery to rebuild urinary, genital, abdominal, or tracheal systems) increased the need to address the problem socially and legally. In 2001, a 9-month-old baby was raped by six men, aged between 24 and 66, after the infant had been left unattended by her teenage mother. A 4-year-old girl died after being raped by her father. A 14-month-old girl was raped by her two uncles. In February 2002, an 8-month-old infant was reportedly gang raped by four men. One has been charged. The infant has required extensive reconstructive surgery. The 8-month-old infant's injuries were so extensive, increased attention on prosecution has occurred.[81] A common myth holds that sexual intercourse with a virgin will cure a man of HIV or AIDS. Child abusers are often relatives of their victims - even their fathers and providers.[82] According to researcher Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, the myth that is not confined to South Africa. “Fellow AIDS researchers in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria have told me that the myth also exists in these countries and that it is being blamed for the high rate of sexual abuse against young children.”[83]
Most rape research and reporting to date has been limited to male-female forms of rape. Research on male-male and female-male rape is beginning to be done. According to psychologist Dr. Sarah Crome, fewer than one in ten male-male rapes are reported. As a group, male rape victims by either gender often get little services and support, and legal systems are often ill equipped to deal with this type of crime.[13] Denov (2004) states that societal responses to the issue of female perpetrators of sexual assault "point to a widespread denial of women as potential sexual aggressors that could work to obscure the true dimensions of the problem."[84] Due to these reasons, it is likely being substantially under-reported, with the probable cause being the double standard.[85] Some legal codes on rape do not legislate against women raping men, as rape is generally defined to include the act of penetration on behalf of the rapist and some legal codes do not legislate against women raping men.[12] In 2007, the South Africa police investigated instances of women raping young men.[86] Little research has been done on female-female rape.
The statistics on false accusations of rape vary widely, from 2% (a figure that has frequently been cited) to Eugene Kanin's (1994) figure of 41%, which derived from a case study of one policy agency in a small metropolitan city in the Midwest. David Lisak (2007) states that Kanin's study is "a provocative opinion piece, but it is not a scientific study of the issue of false reporting of rape" and that it "certainly should never be used to assert a scientific foundation for the frequency of false allegations"[87] Similarly, John Bancroft states that a search of the literature on false rape reports reveals that Kanin's figure of 41% false rape reports is regarded as unusually high. FBI statistics for the annual rate of false reporting of forcible assault across the country have been a consistent 8%.[88] A study from the UK found that of the approximately 14,500 cases of rape reported in 2005/2006 9% were classified as false allegations.[89]
In ancient history, rape was viewed less as a type of assault on the female, than a serious property crime against the man to whom she belonged, typically the father or husband. The loss of virginity was an especially serious matter. The damage due to loss of virginity was reflected in her reduced prospects in finding a husband and in her bride price. This was especially true in the case of betrothed virgins, as the loss of chastity was perceived as severely depreciating her value to a prospective husband. In such cases, the law would void the betrothal and demand financial compensation from the rapist, payable to the woman's household, whose "goods" were "damaged".[90] Under biblical law, the rapist might be compelled to marry the unmarried woman instead of receiving the civil penalty if her father agreed. This was especially prevalent in laws where the crime of rape did not include, as a necessary element, the violation of the woman's body, thus dividing the crime in the current meaning of rape and a means for a man and woman to force their families to permit marriage. (See Deuteronomy 22:28-29.)
The word rape itself originates from the Latin verb rapere: to seize or take by force. The word originally had no sexual connotation and is still used generically in English. The history of rape, and the alterations of its meaning, is quite complex. In Roman law, rape was classified as a form of crimen vis, "crime of assault."[91] Unlike theft or robbery, rape was termed a "public wrong" iniuria publica as opposed to a "private wrong" iniuria privita.[92] Augustus Caesar enacted reforms for the crime of rape under the assault statute Lex Iulia de vi publica, which bears his family name, Iulia. It was under this statute rather than the adultery statute of Lex Iulia de adulteriis that Rome prosecuted this crime.[93] Emperor Justinian confirmed the continued use of the statute to prosecute rape during the 6th century in the Eastern Roman Empire.[94] By late antiquity, the general term raptus had referred to abduction, elopement, robbery, or rape in its modern meaning. Confusion over the term led ecclesial commentators on the law to differentiate it into raptus seductionis (elopement without parental consent) and raptus violentiae (ravishment). Both of these forms of raptus had a civil penalty and possible excommunication for the family and village receiving the abducted woman, although raptus violentiae also incurred punishments of mutilation or death.[95]
From the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome into the Colonial period, rape along with arson, treason and murder was a capital offense. "Those committing rape were subject to a wide range of capital punishments that were seemingly brutal, frequently bloody, and at times spectacular." In the 12th century, kinsmen of the victim were given the option of executing the punishment themselves. "In England in the early fourteenth century, a victim of rape might be expected to gouge out the eyes and/or sever the offender's testicles herself."[96]
The medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas argued that rape, though sinful, was much less unacceptable than masturbation or coitus interruptus, because it fulfilled the procreative function of sex, while the other acts violated the purpose of sex.[97][98][99]
During the Colonization of the Americas, the rape of native women was not held to be a crime under Spanish Law as the persons in question were Pagan and not Christian.[100][101]
The modern criminal justice system is widely regarded as unfair to sexual assault victims.[102] Both sexist stereotypes and common law combined to make rape a "criminal proceeding on which the victim and her behavior were tried rather than the defendant".[103] Additionally, gender neutral laws have combated the older perception that rape never occurs to men,[104] while other laws have eliminated the term altogether.[105]
Since the 1970s, many changes have occurred in the perception of sexual assault due in large part to the feminist movement and its public characterization of rape as a crime of power and control rather than purely of sex. In some countries the women's liberation movement of the 1970s created the first rape crisis centers. One of the first two rape crisis centers, the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, opened in 1972. It was created to promote sensitivity and understanding of rape and its effects on the victim. In 1960 law enforcement cited false reporting rates at 20%. By 1973 the statistics had dropped to 15%. After 1973 the New York City Police Department used female officers to investigate sexual assault cases and the rate dropped to 2% according to the FBI. (DiCanio, 1993).
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Translations:
Rape |
Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - voldtægt, overfald
v. tr. - begå voldtægt mod, overfalde
2.
n. - [bot.] raps
3.
n. - rape (en af seks oprindelige administrative enheder i Sussex)
4.
n. - druepresserester (til fremstilling af vineddike)
Nederlands (Dutch)
verkrachten, verkrachting, aanranding, koolzaad, een van vroegere onderdelen van Sussex
Français (French)
1.
n. - (Jur, fig) viol
v. tr. - violer
idioms:
2.
n. - (Agric, Bot) colza
3.
n. - (GB, Admin) ancienne division de la région du Sussex
4.
n. - lie-de vin
Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps
v. - vergewaltigen, notzüchtigen
idioms:
2.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps
3.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps
4.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βιασμός, βίαιη απαγωγή, λεηλασία
v. - βιάζω, απάγω, διαρπάζω, διαγουμίζω
Italiano (Italian)
stuprare, violentare, stupro, violenza carnale, ratto, rapimento, offesa, colza, (pl.) vinaccia, recipiente per l'aceto
Português (Portuguese)
n. - estupro (m), violação (f), bagaço (m)
v. - estuprar
Русский (Russian)
изнасиловать, изнасилование, полевая капуста
Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - violación, asolamiento, saqueo
v. tr. - violar, saquear, asolar
idioms:
2.
n. - colza, tipo de repollo
3.
n. - cualquiera de las seis antiguas divisiones de Sussex
4.
n. - orujos
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - våldtäkt, skövling
v. - våldta, röva bort
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 强奸, 洗劫, 强夺
2. 油菜
3. 葡萄渣
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 葡萄渣
2.
n. - 強姦, 洗劫, 強奪
v. tr. - 強姦, 洗劫, 強奪
3.
n. - 油菜
한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 강간, 강탈
v. tr. - 강탈하다, 강간하다
2.
n. - 평지(양상추과의 식물)
3.
n. - 영국 서섹스주의 6개 행정구역 중 하나
4.
n. - 포도 찌꺼기
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 婦女暴行, 強姦, セイヨウアブラナ
v. - 暴行する, 強姦する
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) اغتصاب, سلب (فعل) يغتصب, يسلب
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - אונס, תקיפה, חטיפה, שוד
v. tr. - אנס, תקף, הרס, שדד, חטף
n. - צמח ממשפחת הכרוביים
n. - כל אחד משש נפות העתיקות של מחוז סאסקס (דרום אנגליה)
n. - פסולת ענבים המשמשת להכנת חומץ, כלי להכנת חומץ, לפתית, גפת
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| World of the Body. The Oxford Companion to the Body. Copyright © 2001, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2010, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Law Encyclopedia. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Rape. Read more |
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